we are the dead
by orangesparks
Summary: "You think you are fighting for the people, but you will never truly know. Play pretend all you like. Soon, the bullets will arrive, and your fairytale will end." Éponine and Enjolras, at the barricade. (Enjolras/Éponine, albeit mostly one-sided; background unrequited Marius/Éponine.)


The night was long and cold and terrible, but she was still glad to be there.

Sitting at the foot of the barricade was Marius, and her nights were never truly cold when he was near. He didn't know what she'd done yet, but he would soon enough.

Volunteering for sentry duty had been a way to make herself useful, but also to keep out of his sight. She reminded herself of this whenever her eyes grew heavy, or the streets before her blurred into a dark void, and then her eyes snapped open and her back straightened and she resumed her watch with renewed vigor.

A hand suddenly clapped over her shoulder. She spun on reflex, shaking with exhaustion and nerves. But it was only the leader, Enjolras. He had come to relieve her.

"Thank you, Citizen," he told her, tone polite yet somehow bland, and his complacency at her supposed loyalty to his cause filled her with such rage that she wanted to shout.

_This isn't for you, you fool! This is for him!_

But she'd nodded and stepped down, avoiding his eyes. She didn't entirely trust her voice to not give her away. The one called Bahorel climbed up to take her place, Enjolras headed to the opposite end of the barricade to relieve the other sentry, and she'd slumped down in exhausted relief to rest.

And then Marius spotted her.

* * *

She had _wanted_ him to worry - oh, yes, wanted it with all of her heart - but the disappointed look in his eyes still felt like a slap to the face.

_Don't you see? _she wanted to beg of him. _Don't you? It is so much better this way. Now, we'll be together._

But he didn't care.

This was how she found herself inside the Corinth, back to the wall and knees curled to her chest, eyes dark, waiting impatiently for the hail of bullets. She did not cry only because she felt too numb to make the effort.

"Mademoiselle."

She whirled around at the quiet voice.

Standing at the entrance was Enjolras, grim-faced and arms crossed. With a start, she touched a hand to her temple and realized that her hat had fallen off, revealing long, tangled hair - and effectively ruining her disguise.

_Merde._

"Monsieur," she started, in what she hoped was a placating tone, but her voice was too destroyed and she was too tired. He stared at her with infuriating indifference, and she immediately gave up all pretenses. Narrowing her eyes, she waited for him to unceremoniously yank her up by the shoulder, toss her back onto the streets.

Let him try! She'd get in a few good kicks before he got her very far.

Instead, he did an odd thing. Leaning down carefully, straining a little as stiff limbs made their protest, he sat beside her, groaning softly as he did. His exhales were thin and shallow, reminding her of a wounded bird.

It was quiet for such a long time that she almost forgot he was there, until he broke the silence with a harsh little laugh.

"I thought I'd recognized you." His tone was defeated. Sad, almost.

_Did you? _she thought, scornfully. She doubted that very highly. He thought he spoke for the people, but beneath it all, he was bourgeois and he would die bourgeois. Hiding behind big speeches and a stack of broken furniture would not change any of that. There burned within him a fire, yes, but fire only became cold ash when it possessed no gentleness or kindness with which to sustain it, not like Ma-

"You know you cannot stay here."

At that, she only bared her teeth - a crude approximation of a grin. His eyes flickered to her mouth, and she was satisfied to imagine him inwardly shuddering at the gaps in her teeth, the foulness of their color.

_You think you are fighting for the people, but you will never truly know. Play pretend all you like. Soon, the bullets will arrive, and your fairytale will end._

"I shall return to my warm bed tonight, and sleep on a mattress made of feathers, then," she replied in a tone of ice. The bitterness which had swelled up inside her following Marius's anger astonished even her. He flinched.

"It's you whom we fight for," he whispered, after a long moment.

"Do not pretend to know me," she spat. "You don't know any of us." He was stealing not only Marius from her, but Gavroche, too.

He didn't argue.

(His plaintive expression, the lines around his mouth – they made him look young and old all at once.)

"You speak of equality," she whispered, her voice harsh.

Curiosity colored his expression. He nodded.

"Then you should practice it. I am not a detriment to your cause, but an asset, because there is no one more resilient than a woman. I will stay here, and I will die with him, and the only way you can change that is if you plan on shooting me and dragging me out yourself."

At her words, something shuttered in his eyes, made them darker. The sight of it brought a chill to her spine.

"Very well."

With the swift change in his expression, he was just as cold and frightening, yet no longer marble statue; now, the calm before a terrible storm personified - and suddenly the main source of her frustration. Because he was _there_, and because he was an easy target for her slow-burning rage, and all she wanted in the world was to make him hurt – make him _ache_ – the way she did.

"I suppose you think my reasons for being here foolish."

He raised an eyebrow, but did not respond. She snorted.

"You don't know what it's like to want something so badly you know you will die from the pain of not getting it."

There was an uncomfortable pause.

"This is how you feel about Marius?" he asked, carefully, as if he didn't know how to approach the subject and didn't particularly want to. She laughed, and the sound was more bitter than she'd intended.

Amazing how one could be incredibly right yet incredibly wrong. How simple-minded he must have thought her!

_Yes_, of _course_, Marius! - but also a chance at _happiness_; at not having to wonder if her nights would end with nothing but the sharp ache of hunger curling in her belly; at not being subjected to the increasing brutality of her father's whims when she failed at a task; at forgetting that she was only a girl, yet her youth and beauty had long ago been unfairly stolen from her by the cruelty of the streets…

"I'm wrong, then," he said, frown creasing his brow. Studying her. She smirked.

"That has not stopped you before, so I see no reason for it to concern you now."

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and she felt a gleam of triumph enter her smile.

_Yes, I want him. You're not wrong about that. But I want so many other things. I may be poor, but I wasn't always, and I'm still greedy, Monsieur._

"You're wrong, as well," he muttered, and she shot him a glare.

"Oh?"

He turned a twisted smile in her direction, more grimace than grin. "I know plenty about wanting without having."

"Your great republic, I suppose."

"Yes. And reaching the people. I'd thought my speeches had stirred them, made them aware of what is at stake. And I'm still certain yet more of them will rise… but you are who we called for, and here you are – yet not for the reasons I'd hoped."

Her anger flared at his arrogance.

"Then perhaps you'd better learn what the people really want."

"Perhaps."

"Only it's too late for that, Monsieur."

She'd meant the words to be mocking, but they came out angry, pathetic. Embarrassed, she looked away, but not quickly enough to miss the heat in his responding gaze. The intensity of it nearly frightened her. Odd how his stare could be ice one moment, and fire the next.

_Is it? _, was what that look said. _Is it really too late? _But if he planned on her giving him false hope with which to merrily continue his crusade - _ha!_ He was far more stupid than she'd even imagined.

She tilted her chin up and turned to resolutely face him again, to sneer, to show him just how futile his great noble cause really was.

She caught sight of his face and the words died in her throat.

He gazed at her with an unusual expression, one she'd never had laid on her before. It was as though he found her both frustrating and fascinating, something to be studied, held in careful regard.

Squirming under such scrutiny, she decided that she did not care for it one bit.

She wanted to smack him, to make him _stop looking_ at her, but that would mean that he'd won, and so she stared stonily back.

She thought he would grow tired of the game quickly. But his gaze never faltered, staying locked with hers, as though he could discern everything about her if he simply looked hard enough. It was foolish and impetuous. Yet she could not look away, her anger melting into another, indescribable emotion – because for the first time, she caught a glimpse of sorrow within him.

_We are both dying for lost causes, you and I. Perhaps in this you will get your wish. We are equal, after all._

Maybe he wasn't as self-deceiving as she'd thought.

(Because something in his eyes told her that he knew it, too.)


End file.
